Search form

More Than Mortal

Hippocrates is famously quoted as saying “Let food be thy medicine and let medicine be thy food.” What does this actually mean in practice in our daily lives? Well, I think about this quote often when I am deciding what foods I should buy when shopping for my family and subsequently preparing healthy meals at home.

Research suggests that people are generally striving to live meaningful lives. However, it appears that this meaning motive may be more pressing when we feel like we are about to begin a new decade of life.

This post is for all those parents out there who want to provide healthy food options for your kids but are struggling to do so because you are busy or if your kids are like mine, they go through picky phases from time to time.

We hear a lot about how diet impacts physical health. I would like to propose that diet, and more generally how we think about and approach food, also impacts mental health and psychological well-being.

It was not meant to be. Everything happens for a reason. People make statements like these all the time. When life does not go our way or we cannot make sense of a particular event or outcome, believing in fate can provide comfort.

It has long been argued that people utilize religion as a coping mechanism. Loss, uncertainty, and feelings of meaninglessness have all been linked to religiosity. When people are facing difficult life experiences and emotions, their faith offers comfort, provides a sense of order, and bolsters the belief that everything happens for a reason. But what about non-believers?

A Swiss physician named Johannes Hofer coined the term nostalgia in the late 17th century to describe what he considered to be a cerebral disease unique to Swiss mercenaries fighting wars far from home. Fast forward over three hundred years to the present day and nostalgia is everywhere.

The recent massacre at Sandy Hook has left us grasping for answers. How could such a horrible event occur? Who could do such a thing? Why is there so much violence in our society? In a frantic effort to make sense of this tragedy, people are entertaining all sorts of explanations.